Archive for February, 2011

HTC is getting into the tablet arena with its first Android tablet called the HTC flyer. It features a 7-inch display, a powerful 1.5Ghz Snapdragon CPU, 32 GB of storage and support for a whole bunch of audio and video formats.

The tablet is driven by Android with HTC Sense. Some other features include two cameras, one a rear-facing 5MP camera with auto focus and a 1.3MP front camera for video calls. It also comes with a stylus for HTC’s new Scribe application that lets you write.

HTC has unveiled the HTC ChaCha and HTC Salsa. Both devices offer easy access to Facebook with a dedicated Facebook button. They are powered by Android Gingerbread 2.3.3 and use the latest version of HTC Sense. When you make a phone call or receive a call, the screen shows your friend’s latest status and photos and if their birthday is coming up or not.

That fancy Facebook button is context-sensitive so if you’ve just taken a picture, you can push the button to upload it to Facebook. Pretty handy for you social butterflies. Want to let your friends know what you’re listening to? Just press the button while listening to music on the phone.

I know. We can’t believe there’s finally a Digital Copy that’s compatible with Android. It’s about time. Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment has announced that “Unstoppable” will allow Android users to watch the movie on their Android mobile device.

It’s the first time that this has been possible with Google’s mobile OS, but just realize that you will need the disc itself, a WiFi-connected BD player, Android 1.6 or higher and the free PocketBLU app. Both the movie and app can both be downloaded today.

Adobe announced today in Barcelona at the Mobile World Conference in Barcelona that Flash 10.2 will be hitting Android smartphones and Android tablets within just a few weeks. What this brings you is more frames per second and better graphics in Flash animation on your devices, just on the heals of the 10.2 release for Windows and Mac.

Adobe says that devices with dual-core processors such as Snapdragon they are scaling 1080p resolution video and seeing it at 30 frames per second. All this combined with a lower hit to battery life when viewing the video. Pushing the new, faster and more efficient version of the Flash player out to more handsets is a big move for Adobe to bring more popularity to website using Flash technology. Users might not necessarily choose a devices based on its Flash-playing capabilities, but it is something that those producing the devices can add to their list of features to bring more popularity.

Prices and release dates for the HTC Merge and Droid Bionic are still unknown, but you can at least start thinking about the accessories. That’s because Best Buy’s mobile accessories site is now listing both phones, with pictures.

There is no new info about the handsets themselves, but this must mean a release very soon. Head on over to the Best Buy site and have a look for yourself. At least you can start shopping for add-ons.

Hope you got some Chocolate and roses this Valentine’s day. Here’s one more gift. The Boxee Box has Netflix streaming. CEO Avner Ronen says that this has been the most common request by users. Once the latest software update is downloaded, owners can enjoy everything that the latest Netflix interface has to offer, if you are in the US or Canada.

This update also delivers support for Dolby Digital TrueHD bitstreaming, high resolution SRT subtitles and updated support for IR remotes. Now go watch some Netflix.

We’ve all been waiting for Killzone 3 to arrive. The game looks amazing and should outdo Killzone 2 in sales and overall awesomeness. But now 41.4GB worth of files have been leaked to Torrent sites containing Guerrilla Games’ upcoming first-person shooter for the PlayStation 3.

The game isn’t due to be released until Feb. 22nd. That’s a problem obviously. But it isn’t all bad news for Sony. Only hacked PS3 consoles will be able to play the game. The 41.4GB file contains the European version of the game and a rumored second non-3D version is making the rounds at roughly half the size.

If you are drooling over the new Samsung Galaxy S WiFi PMP, we now have the specifications on these two new media players in the Galaxy S line. The two models are the Samsung Galaxy S WiFi 5.0 and the Galaxy S WiFi 4.0.

The Samsung Galaxy S WiFi 5.0 has a 5 inch WVGA TFT LCD display, a 1GHz processor, plus a 5.0 megapixel camera with an LED flash, and a VGA camera on the front for your video chat needs. There’s also FM Radio, a voice recorder, an accelerometer, GPS, a digital compass and 802.11 b/g/n Wifi, plus Bluetooth 3.0.

Plextor has a brand new external Blu-ray writer that feels the need for speed. It’s the PX-LB950UE. It offers a 12x write speed for single-layer Blu-ray media and 8x for double layer. Plextor has also included USB 3.0 and eSATA connectivity.

In-device labeling technology will help you produce professional-looking discs, while also offering burn accuracy, quality and stability thanks to a low vibration system and 8MB buffer. It can record up to 50GB of data to one double-layer disc at an 8x write speed. It will hit Europe later this month for around GBP179 (US$286).

I remember playing Battleship as a kid. It’s a classic that every kid enjoys at some point, but it has needed an update for a long time. So Hasbro is offering Battleship Live. For your $50 purchase you get an infrared light to cloak the board in order to “see” what is going on.

The gameplay remains the same, the object is to get the right coordinates to sink your opponent’s ships, but you also get spy planes which fly around a track and spy on your opponent’s ships, and to confirm your attack you need to cover both of the “confirm” squares on the side of the board.

You have to relieve stress in the office right? What better way then with a gun? A nerf gun of course. The Nerf Dart Tag Swarmfire shoots up to 20 darts in rapid succession at your co-workers or anyone else it happens to be pointed at.

It’s a bit heavier than usual, for stability, and it requires half a dozen “C” batteries instead of the AA’s which add to the weight. Get ready to unleash some intense Nerf fury on your unsuspecting victims. I know you can’t wait for this one.

If you like Auto-Tuning, check this out. T-Pain has been using Auto-Tune so much that it’s become his trademark sound, and people have been capitalizing on this. The “I Am T-Pain Mic“ will let you sing into the microphone and it will play it back in T-Pain’s signature voice.

You can even record your singing and transfer the file to your PC if you want to. Is it worth $40? Well, I guess that depends on your taste in music.

Sonim is back with another rugged handset at MWC this year with the XP3300 Force. The Force has one major feature going for it, the ability to offer the longest talk time of any cellphone in the world at 20 to 24 hours, or 20 to 24 hours of continuous GPS tracking, along with 800 hours of standby.

Sonim made this just as rugged as it’s other offerings, casting the Force in a fiberglass shell with 1.5 millimeters of Gorilla Glass over the display, all adding up to an IP-68-rated device that can survive a two-meter drop onto concrete, two meters of submersion in wastewater and temperatures ranging from 20 below zero to 55 degrees Celsius (-4 to 131 degrees Fahrenheit).

Acer has announced the Iconia Smart Android smartphone, and now we are getting a look at the Acer Iconia A100, a 7 inch Android tablet. The tablet will come with Android 3.0 Honeycomb at launch, although it is shown running Android 2.2 Froyo in the video.

Some other specifications include a Tegra 2 processor, HDMI out a five megapixel camera on the back and a two megapixel camera on the front. We like the design. We’ll see how well it does in due time.

If you have a flash drive that isn’t encrypted, the Hiddn Crypto USB Adapter is an easy way to encrypt flash drives, external drives, and other USB-connected storage media. The device offers secure and easy to use protection for all your externally stored data.

It does this using two-factor authentication in the form of a smartcard storing all encryption keys and a PIN-code. The Hiddn Crypto USB Adapter uses FIPS 140-2 Level 3 and Common Criteria EAL4+ certified Hiddn Crypto Module. Nothing on pricing or availability yet though.